


Ad Aspera

by Katbelle



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Reality, Child Abuse, Family, Hurt/Comfort, Little Sisters, M/M, Male-Female Friendship, Mystery, Non-Graphic Violence, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-10-27
Updated: 2011-10-27
Packaged: 2017-10-25 00:36:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/269692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katbelle/pseuds/Katbelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something's wrong with the world and Moira MacTaggert is the only person who can see it. But as she sets out on a repeated journey, she discovers that not everything is as bad as she thinks it is. And some thing are even worse.</p><p> </p><p>  <strong>On hiatus till the Author figures out her fucked-up life. Which, for now, means indefinitely.</strong></p>
            </blockquote>





	Ad Aspera

**Author's Note:**

> I was inspired by badass!Moira. There's not enough badass!Moira in this fandom. Also, I really wanted to try and have Erik and Moira become friends. Well, even more, at least from Erik's side. As you will see.

**Ad Aspera**

_"I can give you everything you ever wanted. I can make your deepest dream come true."_

_"And what do you want in return?"_

_The laugh he hears is cold, sends shivers down his spine._

_"Nothing that will have any value to you once I'm done."_

He dreams of sun and warm sand that night. He dreams of red and blue, blue and yellow, blue and blue, and blue. Blue sky, blue skin, blue sea, blue... everything. He likes blue.

He doesn't know the woman who perches on his bed. She's pale with sharp features and a smug smile, clad in dangerous black, not comforting blue. The woman reaches out and touches his forehead and he's almost sure he can feel it.

"Don't scratch the wall," she warns and he doesn't know what she means, so he just buries his head in the pillow and dreams once more.

***

Moira opens her eyes and immediately knows that something is _wrong_. This is not her room, she realizes as she looks around, this is not the bedroom that was assigned to her when they arrived at the mansion, before everything went wrong, before Charles was shot and before he... Before... _Oh_. Moira's eyes widen and she instinctively covers her mouth to muffle the gasp. He erased her memories of the mansion, of the whole summer and she _remembers that_. She remembers what he did and she remembers what _they_ did, and she remembers everything, was that supposed to be the case?

She looks around the small, dusty room once more. It certainly isn't one of the mansion's bedrooms, but it's not her bedroom at home either. She shivers. Did something happen? Was she captured? Was everything alright with Charles and the boys? Hell, Erik and Raven even? Oh God, and if the CIA didn't believe her when she'd told them she didn't remember anything? Were they trying to get anything out of her? Could it be that _they_ broke through Charles' memory lock? Or maybe—

A hard knock on the door startles her. She shrieks and jumps out of bed, grabs her gun and points it in the general direction of the person who's turning the doorknob. She feels her jaw drop when a tall man enters her room.

" _Levene_?"

Her partner laughs.

"And whom did you expect, Prince Charming?" He throws a bag with sandwiches on her bed. "That's your part of the breakfast, May. It's quite cold outside, I suggest you put on something warm. We're going to sit there for awhile."

Moira doesn't move. She doesn't drop the gun either. Levene eyes her suspiciously, but doesn't ask any questions. He trusts her to have a reason and now, isn't this cute. Trust. She knows, firsthand, how badly trusting someone might turn out for you.

"Sit where?"

Levene rolls his eyes.

"In the _car_ , Moira. The big Hellfire meeting is today, have you forgotten? _You_ were the one who insisted on checking out any potential relations to the Soviets, _God_ damnit, girl. I'm in Las Vegas with you instead of at home with my kid because you had a _hunch_ and I backed you up. So please, May, take this case seriously."

She does lower the gun at that. She's just too stunned to keep it up anymore.

"Hellfire Club meeting?" she asks shakily. "As in, the meeting where general Hendry is going to show up?"

No. No, surely not. They've closed this case. They've already done it. Is she dreaming? Is she trapped in a memory? She frowns. Is Charles doing this? An awful thought forms in the back of her head. Or maybe the CIA got that other telepath, Frost, to work for them and now she's fishing for information in Moira's head?

"Hendry is going to come?" Levene looks shocked at the prospect. "How do you know? You have some intel?"

"We've already been to that meeting," Moira says slowly. They've been, and that lead them to Charles, and it's her fault that Charles was dragged into this and that he met Erik and that it all ended the way it did.

"No, no we haven't." Levene gets closer to Moira. He takes away her gun and puts a hand on her forehead, check her temperature the way her father used to do when she was little. "No fever, so you're not delirious. Did you drink last night? Is it a hangover? Because I'm not cleaning after you vomit in the car."

She bats his hand away.

"It's not a hangover," she tells him.

It's not a memory, she thinks, because this particular conversation never took place. But someone might still be playing with her memories, twisting them. She might be trapped in Frost's illusion for all she knows.

"Okay," Levene says. "Eat the sandwich, May. We're meeting by the car in ten." She shoots her a concerned glance. "You're sure you're fine?"

"Yeah," she answers unconvincingly, but it's enough for Levene to drop the subject. He leaves her room and Moira reaches for the bag. She knows — without opening the bag — that there's one sandwich with cheese and tomato and one with ham. Just like in reality, when she'd eaten the cheese one and given the ham one to a homeless guy who was sitting in front of their motel.

"Hellfire Club," Moira says to her mirror image.

If someone's doing this to her, she'll find out who and she'll make her way out of here. They can't trap her forever, because she already knows what's going to happen.

***

"Who is it?"

He blushes and tries to hide the picture. His sister yanks it from his hands.

"Nice," she compliments and he's not sure if she means the picture, his technique or the man the picture shows. "Who's that?"

He shrugs.

"No idea."

His sister hands him back the picture. He smoothes it out. He's really not good with drawing people, but his sister is right, this is quite nice. And he can't shake the feeling that... that he knows... somehow...

_"Don't scratch the wall."_

He shakes his head, looks at his sister and smiles.

"You were saying?"

***

This time she knows how to get to the secret part of the Hellfire Club's building, this time she doesn't _waste_ time on going through the papers. She opens the bookcase-door a little, calms her breathing and tries to listen to the conversation.

"I _expect_ you reconsider," Shaw says in a silky voice that's more threatening than if he were shouting. "After all, we both have a lot to lose."

"The only thing I will reconsider is having another glass of this delicious champagne." Hendry smiles knowingly. "I don't think we have any common interest at all, Mr. Shaw."

Shaw grits his teeth and gestures at that silent sidekick of his. The silent man creates a tiny whirlwind that shoves Hendry against the bookcase. This is the part Moira remembers.

And yet.

"Magnificent, isn't she, Bob? Genetic mutation. The evolution of the human genome. But not always on _our_ side." Moira resists the urge to roll her eyes. Our side, of course, for as long as we're useful to each other. Our side her ass. She's seen this before, she knows how it ends. "There are those who would gladly oppose me... _us_ , Bob. Remember about that." Shaw turns his head to Emma Frost. "Where's Azazel?"

Moira quietly leaves the secret room and returns to Levene. He looks away when he gets into the car and mutely hands her her clothes. She doesn't bother phoning McCone, it's no use. Hendry is already in the meeting and she doesn't want to make a fool out of herself.

She tells Levene bare necessities. She tells him about CCCP and missiles in Turkey, and the possible war. She doesn't tell him about mutations or magical travel or diamond girls.

"What do we do?" Levene asks and he's much paler than usual. Probably thinking about his infant daughter, Moira thinks. "May, now what?"

"We need to go to Oxford."

"Oxford?" Levene blinks. "Why on Earth go to Oxford? What do you expect to find there, besides boring academics and dusty books?"

"An expert on genetic mutations."

***

There is no lecture when she arrives in Oxford. Well, there are plenty of lectures, but the only one she was interested in... it's not scheduled. It's not taking place, at all.

"Excuse me," she catches one of the students by the arm, a girl she remembers vividly, blonde with different coloured eyes, she was sitting in the front raw during Charles' presentation, "could you tell me how to contact Charles Xavier?"

The girl blinks, clearly confused.

"Contact who?"

"Charles Xavier," Moira repeats, a cold feeling already settling in the pit of her stomach. "Professor of genetics, Charles Xavier."

"Never heard of him, sorry."

The girl sneaks out of Moira's grasp and leaves her stunned on the sidewalk, soaking in the British rain. And then someone touches her shoulder. So maybe she mistook the girl for someone else. Or maybe the lecture took place a bit later, it's been several months, she can't be expected to remember all the details. (She has photographic and, frankly, perfect memory, so she does remember.) She turns around, ready to see Charles' slightly confused, handsome face.

She sees an elder man who smiles sadly. It's, most certainly, not Charles.

"Forgive me," the man starts, "but I couldn't help but overhear your inquiry. You're looking for professor Xavier."

"Yes," Moira answers relieved. "Professor Charles Xavier. Genetics."

The man chuckles.

"I think you have your facts a bit wrong, young lady." Moira raises her brows and the man continues. "There indeed is a professor Xavier, an expert in genetics."

"Yes, I know, that's why I'm—"

"Professor _Claudine_ Xavier," the man carries on and Moira's jaw drops. This time literally. "She's an expert on genetic mutations, a brilliant British scientist who's been, sadly, based in the US for several years now."

"Claudine," Moira repeats weakly. The man smiles reassuringly and nods. "Not Charles? You're sure?"

"Claudine and I have known each other for many years, young lady, so yes, I'm sure." He pats Moira's shoulder. "I've been a professor in Oxford since 1949 and no one named Charles Xavier has ever graced our halls."

"Thank you."

Moira forces on a smile and bids the man her goodbyes. The man puts on a hat and walks away. Moira doesn't know what to do. This is not how it happened, this is so far from what really happened that it can't be simple tampering with memories. She quickly takes off one glove and pinches her arm.

It hurts.

"Found your expert?" Levene asks when she goes back to the hotel room they're renting. She shakes her head and sit on her bed, hides her face in her hands. She feels Levene sitting behind her and wrapping an arm around her — shaking — form. "Hey," he whispers. "May. Whatever it is, you'll figure it out."

Moira raises her head.

"I need to phone Jules back in Langley," she tells Levene. "I need her to go through every file we have. I need her to find out where is Charles Xavier."

***

"Would you date me?"

His sister emerges from the bathroom clad only in a thin bathrobe. Her red hair still glistens with water.

"Sure," he answers without really looking at her. He just spares her one glance, smiles and goes back to reading.

"Would you date me like _this_?"

He sighs and looks up. His sister is blue — and beautiful — and currently annoyed. Something must have happened. A visit to a bar gone wrong?

"Yes," he answers. "If you weren't my sister, I would have dated you."

"Well," she starts and then runs to the couch and throws herself onto it, right next to him. "I'm not _really_ your sister."

"Raven," he warns her and she giggles. "You _are_ my sister. I don't care that you're blue, but I do care that we grew up together."

She sticks out her tongue and he laughs under his breath. He flips another page.

"Read to me?"

"Raven, I have to prepare for tomorrow."

"Yeah, I know."

She settles comfortably by his side, puts her head on his chest. He kisses her on the top of her head, goes back to the beginning of the chapter and starts reading.

***

"You sure know how to pick 'em," Jules says as she puts a — there's no other word for it — giant cardboard box on Moira's desk. Moira raises her brows. "This Xavier guy, did you know that his family has a whole fucking cabinet for themselves?"

"Language, Jules," Moira reminds her automatically. Then the meaning of Jules' words dawns on her. "What do you mean, a _cabinet_?"

"I mean loads of paperwork." Jules stabs the box. "Those are the only files that weren't classified beyond my imagination. Those which were classified beyond my imagination I've just taken notes on."

Moira takes a moment to be quietly impressed with Jules' abilities and skills in stealth, fast reading and shorthand. To be honest, though... Moira narrows her eyes. It's possible that it's a form of a mutation, right? Hank is super smart, after all. Why Jules can't be super efficient?

"You're a goddess," is what Moira says instead and Jules beams. She brings herself a chair, sits next to Moira by her tiny desk and takes out few files from the box.

"Charles Francis Xavier," Jules reads out from the first page, "born on 5th September 1932 to Brian and Sharon Xavier. Attended Westchester County primary school, graduated with honours from a New York high school, never enrolled on any university course. Exceptional student, according to his school reports, although very introverted. Described by a psychologist as distant and quiet, loner. Indication of mental illness."

Moira gapes and Jules doesn't notice. She reaches for another file.

"Family. Father, Brian Xavier, a renowned nuclear scientist. Employed by the US government on several projects. There was an accident during one of the projects and Brian Xavier almost lost his life. He escaped with third degree burns while his lab partner, Kurt Marko, suffocated on the fumes. Mother, Sharon Xavier, died in 1939, a month after her husband's accident. Shot herself. Blah, blah..." Jules flips several pages. "Barely six months after his wife's death, Brian Xavier got married to one of his science partners, a geneticist named Claudine Renko."

"Wait, Claudine?"

"Yes, that's what the file says. You want to know more about her?" Moira nods. "Fine, I'll go and try to grab something for you."

Jules gets up and sneaks out of Moira's cubicle, tries to get to the archives unnoticed. And she's good, Jules, her Julie-Jules, passes the security, smiles at Frank and waves her ID in front of his face — he's distracted by her body, so he doesn't notice that she doesn't have the access to that part of the building. He lets her in. Moira smirks. Point for the girl team.

"Other family," Moira murmurs as she goes back to reading, "irrelevant. _Raven_." She reaches for another file. This one was written by Jules, so Moira quickly looks around; no one is paying any attention to her, so she cracks the file open. Jules' notes state that it's a short version of a far longer medical report. "Frequent admittance to the Mount Pleasant medical centre... Scarring, attributed to self-harm, probably due to mental instability... Phobias, hysteria and panic attacks... _Panic_?" She turns to the next page. "Admitted to New York State Psychiatric Institute in 1947, remained there until..."

Moira drops the file.

"You okay, MacTaggert?"

Richard Jones — the one who tried to save his life by exposing the kids during the attack on the Florida base, Moira remembers and allows herself to hate him for a moment — looks at her with obvious concern. He's holding her file. She reaches for it and takes it back and pretends that her hands are not shaking.

"I'm fine," she insists. "It's just..." She licks her lips. Jones is waiting for an answer. "It's just this time of month."

"What?"

" _This_ time of month," she repeats. Jones blushes furiously and turns away as if burned.

***

"That's some heavy stuff," Jules comments when they meet in the cafeteria for late lunch. "This Claudine Xavier. And her husband too, actually. So disturbingly creepy."

Jules dumps tree big spoonfuls of sugar into her tiny cup of coffee and Moira suddenly wants to laugh. Charles used to treat his coffee the same way, it always earned him double moans from her and Erik.

"Hit me." Moira takes a sip of her own coffee, black, no sugar. "Who were they? Spies? Double agents? Triple agents?"

"They worked together on a shitload of government approved projects. Most of them included, you know," Jules lowers her voice to a hoarse whisper. "Human testing." Moira shudders. "But that's not the juiciest part. You see, one of this projects, Black Womb or whatever, that's a stupid codename if I ever heard one..."

"Jules, to the point."

Jules licks her lips and leans closer to Moira. She's so close that Moira can feel her breath on her cheek. It tickles, just a little.

"Brian Xavier's _kid_ is listed as one of the test subjects." Moira chokes on her coffee. "They've shut it down after the accident in 1939, but Xavier somehow managed to get it working again in 1946. And again, his son is listed. As a lab rat. Like, officially. Fully legal boom-chica-boom-boom."

"If the project was shut down in the thirties, how did they manage to get it operating again?"

Jules shrugs. Moira wraps her fingers around her mug.

"According to Brian Xavier's official request, his wife brought a new asset to the research. A scientist called Shone. Shore, or something like that."

Moira's hands start shaking so violently that she knock over her mug. The hot coffee spills across the table and drips onto the floor, onto Moira's clothes, paining everything dark brown. Moira doesn't notice, not even when the hot coffee burns her thigh.

"Please tell me you don't mean Shaw," she pleads. "Tell me that the file you found didn't say Sebastian Shaw."

Jules taps her chin.

"Actually, I think it did." She moves her chair away, far enough for the spilled coffee not to reach her. "What, you know the guy?"

"Kind of," replies Moira weakly.

_Charles, what happened to you?_

***

He dreams of sun and warmth and golden sand again. He dreams of blue and pain and heartbreak, he dreams of threats and broken promises and words that sound so alien. He dreams of love and death, and he wakes up screaming.

"Shh, it's okay, it's okay."

Raven. Raven. Beautiful Raven, strong Raven, blue, so blue. His sister, his friend. He clutches to her and tries to calm his racing heart.

"It's fine now, just a dream. Just a bad, bad dream."

Raven shushes him and strokes his hair, holds him and rocks him back and forth. It helps, it always does.

"Raven," he whispers and buries his face in her bony — blue — shoulder.

The dream is slowly falling apart all around him.

_"Don't scratch the wall."_

***

Charles disappeared, that much Moira knows for sure. Of course she doesn't know what the _hell_ — she shouldn't be spending so much time around Jules — is going on, why everything is wrong and everyone acts like it's _fine_ , but she'll find out and then she'll find Charles. It's June and the day of the Miami Encounter is getting dangerously close. But — Moira allows herself to think that in the time of great need and despair — maybe it's not a bad thing, at least not entirely. Erik is going to be there and if there's one person who'll want to find Charles as much as she does (maybe even more), that's him. Actually... Scratch that, and _fuck_ , why hadn't she thought about this earlier. Erik. He might help her. Since finding Charles failed, she has to find Erik instead, that traitorous, bullet-bending son of a bitch.

"Jones," she starts sweetly the moment she steps into the office. She leans over Richard Jones' desk and lets him look deep into her blouse. Small sacrifices in the name of greater good. "Do we have any information about a man named Erik Lehnsherr entering the US? Lehnsherr, with a silent "h"?"

And Jones shoots her the most pitying look ever.

"Are you shitting me, MacTaggert?" Moira blinks. "Oh, you _are_ serious. Really, MacTaggert. Read a newspaper once in awhile, would ya?"

Moira shakes her head and hurries to Jules' cubicle.

"Jules, a crisis," she announces, then yanks a case file from Jules' fingers. Jules just leans back in her chair and arches one eyebrow. Moira's palms start sweating.

"Erik Lehnsherr," she says. "What happened? Which important information memo I didn't get? We caught him? He killed someone? What am I missing?"

"Are you living under a rock, May?"

"For the sake of this conversation, yes, let's assume that I live under the rock."

Jules huffs, then reaches to the top drawer of her desk and takes out a newspaper that she hands to Moira.

"Front page," she suggests.

Moira reads the front page. And then she reads it again, positive that she's seeing things. After reading the article five times she decides that no, apparently the article is real. Or, as real as anything is these days.

"I know that you're not exactly in the loop, May," Jules says after Moira handed back the newspaper and slumped onto a spare chair, "but how on Earth are you still in the CIA if you can't recognize the CEO of the company that's making half of our country's weaponry?"

***

"Try this."

Raven wrinkles her nose.

"It _stinks_."

He rolls his eyes.

"It's _cheese_ ," he replies. "French cheese. It's supposed to stink. And now try, it's not going to eat you."

Raven eyes him and the dish suspiciously, but obediently takes a bite of the quiche he'd prepared. She tastes it for a moment, before an expression of pure bliss settles on her face.

"Delicious," she says with a smile. "May may, my big brother managed to master a recipe."

He smacks her at the back of her head, like he used to when they were kids.

"Silly."

The doorbell rings. They freeze. Raven shoots him a panicked look.

"Raven, go blond," he hisses.

"But—"

"I don't want it either, but it's for your protection."

She looks as if she were ready for an argument, but he's already out of the kitchen. He closes the door behind him and goes to check who's bothering them. It can't be... No, absolutely not. It just _can't_ , they've escaped, they've hid, they're safe.

He reaches out and opens the door.

***

It takes Moira two days and makes her call some really old favors, but in the end she manages to get a hold of Erik Lehnsherr's top secret, hush-hush address. She goes there the same day. She rehearses what she's going to say to him the whole journey from Washington to New York. He's probably as confused as she is, but it won't stop her from yelling at him for abandoning them, for leaving them behind and not looking back _once_ , for not checking if Charles even lived through his nine hours long surgery. He deserved that and much, much more, the bastard.

She rings the doorbell and waits. When he opens the door, she is ready to shout, she has a whole screaming fit prepared, she only needs to see his face, needs to see the flash of guilt and shame she's sure she's going to find there the moment he sees her. Erik opens the door, peeks at her, she takes a deep breath...

And nothing. Not even a spark of recognition.

"Yes?" he asks politely and he stinks of what she recognizes as Pont l'Eveque.

"It's me," she says futilely. "Moira?"

"You must have got the wrong address."

He tries to shut the door, but she block it with her shoe. He grunts angrily and checks her out. She feels a slight push coming from her skirt zipper.

"I know better than to come here with metal on me, Erik Lehnsherr," she forces out through clenched teeth and that catches Erik off guard. She pushes him back and moves past him into the apartment. "I've learnt my lesson well."

She hears him shut the door with so much force that the glass in the windows shutters.

"Do I know you?"

"Yes," she answers as she settles on his leather couch. "At least you should know me. We've worked for the CIA together."

"Never worked for the CIA, it's against my company's policy."

"We've faced Shaw together. In Cuba." Still no reaction. "We both know Charles?"

She sounds desperate, she knows this. Erik shakes his head.

"The only Charles I know is my driver," he says and reaches for the phone. "And now, if I were you, I would get going before I call the police."

Moira grabs her bag and takes out her badge.

"I'm agent Moira MacTaggert from the CIA," she says. "I've been working in the mutant division for the past several months and, unfortunately, I've been working with you."

"You do realize that I can sue you for calling me—"

"I know that you are a metal-bender," she interrupts him and finally, that earns her a reaction. His eyes widen comically. "Metallokinetic is the official word, but for me you'll always be a spoon-bender, sorry, Erik. We've been working together and maybe we haven't parted as the best of friends, but you're the only person who can help me now." She takes a breath. "Something's _wrong_ with the world, I can't find Charles and I can't find any answers, so _please_ , Erik, spare me a moment of your precious time. And please, you have to remember."

He puts his arms up and takes a tentative step closer to her.

"I think you're confused," he tells her slowly. "Why don't you sit here and wait, I'll go and get us a drink..."

"You'll phone the police, yeah, Erik, I don't think so." She laughs. She admits she might have sounded a bit like a maniac. "You can't tell me that everything is alright."

"Well, clearly—"

"Look me in the eye," Moira demands suddenly, "and tell me that nothing is wrong. That you don't feel out of place, that you don't have a feeling that everything is supposed to look different, that you should remember something and you can't."

He does look at her, but he doesn't say anything. He might be a brilliant liar, but he wouldn't be able to fake _that_ level of conviction. He breathes in and opens his mouth to say something, and maybe he wants to confirm what she already knows, maybe he wants to share something she doesn't, maybe he is lying and he knows what's going on and it's his fault, or maybe he'll laugh in a moment and it will turn out to be a horrible prank set up by the boys. And maybe Cuba didn't happen and they're all fine, and...

"Erik?"

They both turn towards the — kitchen, Moira assumes — door. There's a slim blonde girl standing there, clutching a receiver and looking frightened. Moira knows that girl.

"It's okay," Erik says to the girl and then turns to Moira. "Agent... MacTaggert, this is my sister, Raven."

"Hi," Raven murmurs. She lets go of the receiver and she hurries to Erik's side, wraps her hands around Erik's waist and immediately looks relieved. Like she feels safe in his arms. Like she belongs there.

"Raven," Moira repeats flatly. Her gaze wonders from Erik's face to Raven's. "Now, this is a surprise."

"What?"

Moira just shakes her head and wriggles on the couch.

"For God's sake, _sit down_ ," she snaps when neither one of the — _God_ — siblings moves. They exchange a quick glance and then slid onto the other sofa, exactly opposite Moira. "Oh, and turn back to blue, Raven, I know that faking annoys you."

Raven's jaw drops. Erik stares.

"How...?" he starts and Moira cuts him of with a hand wave.

"I told you. I _know_ you." She closes her eyes. "Apparently you don't know yourselves, but fine, at least you're here, we'll work it out."

"Work out what exactly?"

Moira opens her eyes. Raven looks at her suspiciously, taps her foot against the metal — of course — coffee table.

"A solution to our current problem." She turns to Erik. "Do you think that Shaw's telepath could do this?"

"Whose what?"

Erik furrows his brows, evidently _not_ recognizing Sebastian Shaw's name. Moira swallows. This is worse than she initially thought — very worrying indeed — and thus is going to take a lot of work.

"Why not start from the beginning," she suggest and delivers them a story that she herself would have never believed if she hadn't lived it.

***

"So basically, you're telling us that in some... alternative universe you and I are friends who fight an evil overlord for the CIA?"

Erik looks at her incredulously, as if she suddenly grew a second head. Who knows, maybe even a third one too. Moira bites her lip. At least he stopped pacing.

"Not alternative reality, _this_ reality," she insists. "This reality before someone fucked it up."

"That kind of makes it an alternative reality then," adds Raven. Erik smiles at her.

"Thank you, Raven, the voice of reason."

He slides back onto the couch beside Raven and rubs his hands over his face. He looks tired, much more like the Erik she remembers, not the one who opened the door of a Midtown Manhattan penthouse several hours ago with an almost contagious smile plastered to his handsome face.

The bastard.

"You realise that it makes you sound like a lunatic?"

Moira nods. To be honest, she didn't even expect Erik to listen to her. She thought that he'd rather knock her out and throw her off the balcony or something gruesome like that. She honestly wasn't prepared for a polite offer of tea and quiche that arrived half-way through her story. This Erik, whoever he was, didn't think that violence was applicable to every problem.

"I believe you," Raven announces out of the blue.

Moira gapes, Erik only sighs.

"Raven, you also believe in UFO and fairies," he scolds her gently, with amusement colouring his voice.

"I know." She sounds serious, the way she did after the attack on the CIA base, mature, experienced. "But I think she's right. Something _is_ wrong."

Erik's face falls.

"Raven..."

"Don't 'Raven' me, Erik! I've known you half of my life! I _know_ when something's wrong with you and trust me, something's been very wrong for the last few weeks."

Erik rolls his eyes and dismisses Raven's obvious concern, but Moira gets interested.

"Wrong how?"

Raven leans forward a bit and rests her elbows on the coffee table.

"He's been having nightmares," she explains.

"Raven, those are just..."

"Oh, shut up, you've _never_ had a nightmare before, Erik, don't even think about denying!" She clears her throat. "Anyway, nightmares, but - really ugly nightmares. And notes. Sometimes I go into his office and he's just scribbling some random notes, bits of conversations we've never had, names of places, people..." Raven taps her chin, then shoots Erik an apologetic look. "And there are also the drawings."

Erik groans.

"Raven, you can't possibly attribute anything to _drawings_."

"Yes," she replies defiantly, "yes I can, especially if you draw the same thing over and over again."

"Can I see those drawings?" Moira asks and Raven says "yes" at the same time Erik hisses "no".

Raven gets up.

"Raven, if you bring the notebook here..." Erik warns her.

She shrugs and leaves.

***

Erik is talented, Moira decides after seeing the first picture. It's Raven, but it's Raven in her blue-yellow uniform that they've been wearing in Cuba. The drawing is detailed and Raven's expression is spot-on, but that may be contributed to the fact that Erik and Raven, apparently, grew up together.

When she sees the rest of the pictures, Moira decides that Erik's technique is flawless and he is a fucking genius.

There are drawings of Angel in flight, of a blue, furry Hank. The mansion - drawn with light brown crayons, not even pencils - is perfect, the perspective, the facture of the stone, the colour, just... Erik is a MIT graduate, an engineer, and yes, he's supposed to be good with drawing projects and stuff - a drawing titled "Cerebro (?)" proves, beyond any doubt, that he _is_ \- but this is something more, this is art, finesse, not practicality.

"At first I thought Erik was trying to subtly make fun of me," Raven says as she takes the picture of Hank away from Moira, traces Hank's face with her thumb. "I'm an undergrad in Columbia, I'm doing medieval studies and I thought that this douche was mocking my _chanson de geste_."

"As if I would."

Raven sticks out her tongue.

"And then Erik started having nightmares," she carries on after a moment of silence, "and after that he kind of... got stuck with one drawing."

Raven hands Moira a single sheet of paper and Moira's brows raise up to her hairline. It's hard to say that it ever _was_ a picture to begin with; it just looks like someone took coal and randomly started scratching the paper.

"It was a drawing, of someone," Raven clarifies and Erik blushes. "Erik was working on it for two days before destroying it."

"I wasn't happy with it."

"Right." Raven eyes him pityingly and even Moira can tell that it was the most unconvincing lie he'd said. "And that's also why you've scribbled _that_ all across the other side of the sheet."

Moira flips the sheet of paper over. _Don't scratch the wall_ is written in Erik's elegant - if clearly rushed - handwritting all over it.

"I was beginning to think that the stress was making my brother lose it," Raven says finally. "And then you showed up. So yeah." She crosses her arms on her chest. "I believe you."

"Thank you."

"I don't." Raven proceeds to kill Erik with a look and he coughs. "But, under the circumstances, I believe it might be good to... trust you, for the time being."

Raven beams and pats Erik's knee. Moira is... surprised is a good word. For all the time she'd spent in Westchester, she's never seen Raven so openly affectionate around Charles. Teasing him, yes, disobeying, of course. Touchy-feely? Never.

"What do you think we should do?" Raven asks. "You know. About the evil overlord, figuring out what's wrong?"

Moira hasn't thought about it yet, and she should have done so, crap. There's no reason to go after Shaw to Miami now, obviously Erik won't be there and without a telepath the mission would be a laughing stock. So, what to do? Contact the Man in Black, probably, the agent was the only person who believed her and Charles the first time round. He'll believe her now as well. Plus, there's Hank. And with Hank they can try and find the rest of the team, and that should be good, right? Recreating the original setting of everything.

"We'll go to a CIA base," Moira tells them. "There we'll try to bring the old gang together."

Raven and Erik exchange quick glances.

"So what, we have a gang too?"

***

New York is closer to Virginia than Oxford, so they simply take a car. At first Raven is puzzled as to why they can't have Charles-the-chauffer drive them all the way - they have a chauffer, this is ridiculous, even _their Charles_ didn't have a chauffer - but then manages to see the hidden potential in the 'road trip'. She half-lies on the backseat, reads a newspaper and pretends she's ignoring the tension in the front part of the car.

"Tell me about yourselves."

Erik looks at Moira and raises his brows.

"Didn't you claim to know us?" he mocks her. "Why would you need us to tell you anything?"

"Things have changed," Moira says diplomatically. "I'd like to know how much they've changed."

A lot, she already knows that. Knows that from Erik's sweet and honest smile, Raven's self-confidence, the way Erik is at ease with himself and has nothing against wearing T-shirts. From the files Jules got for her, from her trip to England, and God knows what else is fucked up.

"What do you want to know?"

Moira glances at Raven in the rear view mirror.

"How come you grew up together?" she asks and that's the one question that's been bugging her since she arrived at Erik's place. Raven is Charles' sister, isn't she?

Erik laughs and Raven snorts from behind her magazine.

"Then we need to move a bit further in time, I think." He stretches his back and gets more comfortable. "Actually, I'm not American."

"German," Moira interrupts. "Yeah, I know."

Erik glares at her before continuing.

"My family came to the States in 1938. Things were getting hot in Europe and my grandfather managed to get diplomatic visas for my parents and me. He was a scholar, a well-known professor so it wasn't very hard."

"You escaped," Moira concludes and risks a glance at Erik's left arm. The skin there is tanned and unblemished. "Before the war begun."

"Yes," Erik nods. "We were lucky. We settled in Boston, my mum got a job at the opera, my dad opened a shop. Everything was fine."

"But?"

Erik takes a breath.

"My dad died when I was fourteen. 1944, that was a bad year." He grimaces. "Anyway, things were tough for a while. And then, on an afterparty for one of the opera's premieres, my mum met Christian."

"And they fell maaadly in looove," giggles Raven. "And got maaarieeed."

"Christian?"

"Christian Darkholme," explains Erik. "Owner of the Darkholme Industries. Raven's dad."

"Which means... your step-father." Moira tries to make sense of the mass of new information. Erik's mother and Raven's father... Raven's _biological_ father. Moira didn't know a lot about Raven's past and what Charles told her wasn't much, but she knew that - prior to meeting Charles when they were kids - Raven was homeless. Which either meant that her parents were dead or that they didn't want her.

"He's also my boss, you know."

Erik grins and Moira has a hard time not smiling back.

"What about your mother, Raven?"

Erik's grin momentarily disappears, hardens and this looks much more like her Erik, constantly angry, waiting and plotting. Erik's mouth thins into a barely visible line.

"I didn't know her," Raven replies, unbothered. "She died in childbirth."

"I'm sorry," Moira whispers.

Raven sits upright and throws her magazine at Erik, hits him on the head. She shrugs.

"It's okay," she says, then winks. "Besides, I got a new mum. Sadly, Erik came with the same package as her, but I'm coping."

The magazine finds itself again in the back, this time in Raven's face.

"Douche," she snaps.

"Twit," Erik replies affectionately.

***

Explaining the situation to Smith takes some time, but without McCone and Stryker around, he's easier to convince. He positively bounces at the opportunity to work with Raven and Erik and really, it's Erik who gathers most of the attention. In comparison, Charles' try at talking with the CIA was an utter failure.

"I always wondered how your company manages to make handheld weapons that are so... so..."

"Comfortable? Fitting?" Raven shakes her head fondly. "My brother's life motto is something about achieving perfection."

"You should meet one of our young researchers, Mr. Lehnsherr. Hank is fascinated with your work."

"Oh, Erik!" Raven presses her body closer to Erik's. "You have a fan!"

"Shut up."

Raven and Smith enter Hank's lab first. Erik lingers near the door, waits for Moira. He pushes the door open for her and bows his head when she passes him. She blinks. A gentleman. Seriously?

Hank is sitting by a giant desk, surrounded with blueprints and papers. Smith has to clear his throat to get his attention and once he does, Hank almost faints. He most certainly falls off his chair when he sees Erik and he blushes so furiously that it makes Raven laugh. Moira didn't think it was possible, but Hank gets even redder.

"This is Hank McCoy," Smith introduces them. "Hank, this is agent MacTaggert, she requested you to assist her on her case. And these are Miss Raven Darkholme and Mr. Erik Lehnsherr."

"P-p-pleasure," Hank stutters and starts wiping his glasses. Moira estimates that it will give him about five seconds to compose himself. "Mr. Lehnsherr," he says finally, "that's an honour, I admire your work."

Raven elbows Erik and Moira could swear that she heard a quiet "told you so".

"Thank you." Erik looks up, at the model of the old Blackbird. He points at it. "Is this your work, Mr. McCoy?"

"Hank," Hank murmurs. Swallows. "Yes, it designed it."

"It's beautiful."

"Supersonic."

"Stop them," Raven whispers into Moira's ear, "before they get too far in their geek-out."

"Alright!" Moira claps to draw the men's attention. It works. She turns to Smith. "We would like to discuss several things with Hank, if it's okay."

"Of course, I'll show you to my--"

" _Alone_."

Smith narrows his eyes, but he leads them to a small conference room. He leaves them alone and walks away hurriedly. Moira looks at the clock. They have about twenty minutes before Smith phones Langley and finds out that Moira is not on any mission and she has no permission to be there. Not much time, so it's better to be quick.

"Hank, this is important, so I need you to focus."

Hank nods and puts his elbows on the table, leans forward.

"We know that you're a mutant, you're our friend, but someone messed up the timeline and you don't remember anything we've done together. We need your help to get the whole team back together, we need your help to stop a maniac from destroying the world and we need your help to find a very important person. The question is, how long will it take you to pack your things?"

Hank blinks. Then he blinks again and looks over from Moira to Erik to Raven and then back to Moira.

"I'm a _what_?"

Moira rolls her eyes.

"Your feet, Hank, we know."

He shakes his head.

"Is there something wrong with my feet?"

Moira stares at him, at a loss. Great. If there's nothing wrong and Hank has never had to hide, how will they convince him that they're not a bunch of madmen? And... Moira tenses. There's a commotion outside the conference room. Moira and Erik exchange a quick look. They don't have much time, they need to _go_.

"Hank... May I call you Hank?" asks Raven and Hank nods. Raven licks her lips. "I'll explain it to you in greater detail later, but all you need to know _now_ is that you're a genius. And not just a genius, you're super-smart. You're a superhero, you're something _more_ than a regular human and intellect is your superpower. And according to her," Raven gestures at Moira, "you and I, and my brother, we're part of something bigger than ourselves. We're saving the world and you're our resident genius and mastermind and we need you, Hank. Without you we don't stand a chance and the world will be destroyed."

"I thought you've said that someone already messed..."

"Not important right now!" Raven presses her fingers to Hank's mouth. He goes very silent and very still and Raven's eyes widen, turn gold. "I just mean," she murmurs while she drags her fingers down Hank's chin, "if we want to work out what's happened, we need you to help us. You're... You're irreplaceable."

Hank swallows, then nods.

"I just need to go and grab my notebook."

Moira exhales. She wasn't even aware that she was holding her breath, but it's good to be able to breathe properly again.

"Okay," she says. "We need to get going now, because we really don't have the permission to be here. Meet us by the eastern gate in five."

They get up and out of the conference room very fast. Moira leads Erik and Raven to the eastern wing of the facility, the to the parking lot. They can't go back for the car they've left outside the building, agents are probably already going through the things left in there. They need something new, crap, why didn't she take any paperclips with her, they would be useful right now...

"A ride, milady?"

Moira turns around to see a smug Erik, leaning on a brand new Mercedes. The door is wide open and Raven is already sitting inside.

"How did you...?"

Erik wriggles his fingers, then goes over to open the door for her. She gets into the passenger's seat and he closes the door, gets inside himself.

"Sometimes my tricks come in handy," he observes casually as he goes through his pockets. He finds a metal lighter, turns it into his hand and then - unexpectedly, and it causes Moira to jump - melts the metal to fir into the lock. He starts the car, grins at Moira and leaves the parking lot.

Hank is already waiting by the gate when they arrive. Raven opens the door for him.

"Pop in!" she encourages him and it's good that she tries, because Hank looks as if he were to faint at any moment. "We've just stole it, it's really nice! New."

Hank quickly gets inside and Raven shuts the door. Erik presses the pedal and gets them out of the facility. Raven claps him on the shoulder, then proceeds to cheer up a mortified Hank.

"That was, most certainly, something new," Erik says and smiles at Moira. "But fun."

"Yeah," she replies.

There are things they need to do. They need to get the team back together, they need to find Charles, they need to stop Shaw, they need to find out who'd done this to them. Moira needs to convince her superiors that Shaw is a threat and that she knows how to deal with him. They need to find a place to rest.

But yeah. Moira grins. That was fun.

***

Moira has exceptional memory - for a human at least - and she really hates paperwork, so it doesn't take her much time to remember some of the locations Erik and Charles had visited during their recruiting trip. They're crippled, of course - and damn, that word _hurts_ and she can't even yell at Erik, who's sweet and makes her coffee and _haven't done anything_ \- because they don't have Cerebro and they don't have Charles. But Moira remembers some of the addresses from the countless letters she had to write in order to explain two covert CIA guys suddenly coming and taking people away. With Alex it wasn't so bad, Angel managed to talk to her aunt herself, but Sean? Sean was just a _kid_ and convincing his parents that he wasn't in any danger was a bitch.

"You're going to find Angel in Belmont in North Carolina." Moira takes a marker and circles the place. "Sean lives in Clinton, Connecticut, Alex was in prison in Trenton and Darwin is a cabbie in Philadelphia. You also visited Chinatown in Washington, but you haven't recruited anyone." She straightens and hands the map to Erik. "There, have fun."

"I think we should split," Erik says out of the sudden. "If you're right, assembling the team cannot take long, otherwise we'll run out of time. So I think we should split up."

"We?" Moira asks. Erik has the nerve to look sheepish.

"I thought you might... want to go with us."

"On a recruiting trip?"

"Forget it," Erik mutters and grabs the map a bit too harshly.

Moira just stares at him. He went on the recruiting trip with Charles, back when everything was normal. They returned completely different, as if those few weeks on the road dramatically changed something about them, something very base. Moira wasn't sure she wanted to experience that, but - on the other hand - Erik did have a point...

"Fine," she says. Hank and Raven raise their heads, but Erik doesn't turn back to look at her. "We'll split up. Erik and I..."

"Actually," Erik interrupts her, "I wanted to go with Raven."

"No way in hell."

Raven crosses her arms and glares at Erik. It's threatening, but Erik doesn't seem impressed. Moira is, once again, reminded that those two grew up together and they know everything about each other.

"Raven, I just want you to be safe."

"I will be safe," Raven insists. "Hank will be there to protect me, right, Hank?" Hank turns scarlet and mutters his admittance.

"Raven, if that kid..."

"Erik." Raven lets out a pained sigh. "Are you really that paranoid to think that this kid found out where we moved, followed us there, then followed us to Virginia, then followed us here? Seriously?" She smiles mischievously. "Besides, don't you want to spend some quality time with Moira?"

"Okay," Erik surrenders way too fast after the last comment. "You'll go with Hank, but _only_ if you take the New Jersey and Philadelphia leads. One is a big city, the other is a prison, it's less likely for you to get into any trouble."

"And yes, mum, I'll phone you every day."

"Stupid brat."

Erik bends and writes down the coordinates, then hands the map to Hank. It's a very big brother thing to do, Moira thinks, to assume that your sister is incompetent and will surely get lost without a proper map. You can go with just a handwritten list of places, she can't. Moira wonders if Charles would do the same. For some reason she thinks that Charles would never let Raven go at all.

"You contact us every time you find someone, Raven. Moira and I will be staying at the Ritz, _always_ , so just phone home and they'll get you appropriate number. If we're not yet at the hotel, you leave a message."

"I'm not a child anymore, Erik, you do realise that?"

"Raven, this is important!" Erik snaps.

"I know." Raven moves closer to him. "I'll phone every time we find someone. I'll phone when we don't find anyone. You don't have to worry about me, I'll be fine. Let me prove it to you." She wraps her hands around his shoulders and kisses his cheek. "I'll be fine, I promise, so don't go nuts on Moira, okay?"

"Darling, only you can make me go crazy."

"I love you." She kisses him on the other cheek as well before releasing him. She grins wickedly. "So... Can Hank and I take the Mercedes?"

***

They rent a car this time. Erik smiles brilliantly, shoves a cheque at the assistant at the car rental company and gets them a Chevrolet. It's not as new and beautiful as the Mercedes, but it has a certain charm. It's a Corvette and the last time Moira got a battered Impala for Erik and Charles. The Corvette is in a much better state, obviously, but it still makes Moira laugh, the fact that they're once again recruiting in a Chevy.

"Those people you've mentioned... Did we recruit them? The, the last time?"

"Yes," Moira answers. "Two of them, however, weren't on the team that faced Shaw."

"Why?"

"Minor complications." Erik regards her questioningly and Moira feels uncomfortable. He knows that she's lying. "Shaw killed one of them and took the other."

"Abducted?"

"From what I've been told - as we weren't there - she went willingly."

Erik focuses on the road. Moira goes through various radio stations, but doesn't find anything interesting. She switches the radio off.

"Can I ask you a question?"

"You already did," Erik retorts with a smile, "but go on."

"When I asked about Raven's mother, you got defensive. Why?"

The mention of Raven's mother triggers the same reaction this time. He grips the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles go white. He stares right on the road and is silent for what feels like eternity. Moira is giving up on receiving an answer when he finally speaks.

"Christian is a good man. He's a great father, a great husband and he's always been a supportive step-father. When I first met Raven, I didn't like her. At all. I decided to pull a prank on her and it... It didn't end well."

"What do you mean?"

Erik laughs, but it sounds bitter. It's a sound that might have come from the other Erik, the broken Erik, but it doesn't fit _this_ Erik. He's too cheerful for that kind of sound, too happy, too carefree.

"I scared Raven so much that she slipped on her form. She shifted back to blue in the middle of my mum's living room. I still don't know who was more scared, she or Christian." He runs a hand through his hair. It looks a bit reddish in the warm glow of the sunset, Moira thinks. "Mum was shocked, but not in a bad way. She already had me, a spoon-bender," Moira snorts, "so she didn't react with a full-blown panic. Christian was relieved, Raven was relieved and I was happy. I've never met anyone different before and suddenly I wasn't alone. The moment I saw Raven as she really is, I knew she was perfect. Christian was... he was thrilled to know that I thought that, because it meant Raven didn't have to hide in hr own house."

"For a long time I didn't know why it was so important for Christian to stress how much he accepts Raven," Erik carries on after a short pause. "But one night we got drunk, and I mean it, really drunk. And he told me that he wanted to abandon Raven after she was born. She was blue, she was different and he blamed her for his wife's death. He wanted to dump her in a wood, leave her to die."

Moira listens, horrified. Maybe that's what happened in real life, she thinks. Maybe that's why Raven was homeless and hungry, and broke into Charles' house when they were kids. Maybe her father left her, maybe he...

"But he didn't."

"No," Erik shakes his head. "But it was close, he was already outside of the town."

"Then what happened?"

"A miracle," Erik says and Moira realises that he's not joking. "Raven smiled at him. A little infant, just smiled at him. Christian said that she looked exactly like her mother in that moment and that he simply couldn't leave her. She was his daughter, but she was also her mother's daughter."

"So he kept her and tried to make up for those thought since that day," Moira concludes. Erik nods.

"I was disgusted with what I've heard. I couldn't imagine why someone might want to do such a thing. Why being different is supposed to be a bad thing?" He hits the steering wheel. "We're all human, so why the hate?"

"I don't know," Moira whispers, but Erik doesn't seem to hear her.

"I promised myself that I'll do everything to keep Raven safe and happy. It's not easy, sometimes keeping her safe means making her unhappy, but I try to balance it. Some kid was stalking her a few weeks ago and I decided that we should move. Raven wasn't happy, she had to apply for transfer to Columbia, had to leave her friends, but she never complained. She trusted me to make the right choice for us. And that's fucking annoying, you know," Erik turns to Moira and grins, "having someone who relies on you so much."

"I imagine," Moira says.

She thinks about Westchester and the school Charles wanted to open, about the kids they've trained, about the other Raven and the other Erik. She wonders what happened to the Charles of here.

They remain silent until they reach North Carolina, their first stop during the recruitment road trip.

This is going to be so much fun.

**Author's Note:**

> This is not-exactly-an-AU where eveything is not the way Moira remembers. I will cover more changes later, but as of now - do you see a pattern? Also, the recruitment road trip is next! And don't worry, Erik and Moira will - eventually - find Charles. Probably not the way you think they will.
> 
> Raven's and Charles' backstories are made up. We know from X3 that Raven's blood family isn't especially nice or supportive, we also know that Charles' mum was rather neglectful. From comics we know that Brian Xavier was a scientist and that he worked on several dubious projects. I don't particularly like his character and have my whole head!canon about him. More on him is to come and yes, since he IS alive in this universe, we will meet him. And his wife. As well as we'll get to know Edie Darkholme.


End file.
